


Siren Song

by Tangerine_Catnip



Category: Borderlands (Video Games), The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Blupjeans Week 2018, Co-workers, Crossover, Evil Corporations, F/M, Meet-Cute, Space Battles, siren Lup
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-31
Updated: 2018-05-31
Packaged: 2019-05-16 16:32:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14814914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tangerine_Catnip/pseuds/Tangerine_Catnip
Summary: The Starblaster and her crew are hired by Maliwan to escort some very valuable cargo (and one beleaguered scientist) back to HQ. (Blupjeans Week Day 6 – working together)





	Siren Song

"Hey, blue. You doing alright there?"

Barry rubbed his eyes with his wrist and blinked rapidly, trying to get the dust out of them.

The proximity alarm wailed away in the background, even though everyone was already very well aware they were under attack.

Barry shoved his glasses back on his face, the left lens was cracked down the middle, but there was nothing that could be done about that.

Now that Barry could see, he noticed the hand reaching out towards him. The palm was covered in glowing white tattoos that trailed all the way up the attached arm.

Lup wiggled her fingertips at him.

"Hey, do you want help or not? Because there's like twenty better things I could be doing right now."

Barry took her hand and Lup pulled him back onto his feet.

She was glowing from head to toe, both from the swirling tattoos that covered half her body and the pair of ethereal wings that sprouted from her shoulders.

Barry had thought she was drop-dead gorgeous the moment he had boarded the mercenary ship, but now that the threat they had been hired to defend him and his cargo from had officially reared its head, he realised that he'd only witnessed a fraction of her true beauty.

Lup tapped on the virtual screen of her ECHO, putting in a call.

"Dav? Yeah, it's Lup. I've got the company man with me and we're both safe. Where are the others?"

Through the voice connection the sound of gunfire and screaming reverberated, but Davenport's voice came through loud and clear over top.

"Cargo bay. The enemy managed to breach the hull."

"Shhiiiit..." Lup hissed. She terminated the connection and turned to Barry.

"So, Maliwan-man, know how to fire a gun?"

Barry shook his head.

"You work for a weapon manufacturer, but you don't shoot?"

"I was born into it..."

Lup signed and brought up the innovatory management screen of her ECHO. After browsing for a bit, she selected a huge triple-barrel Hyperion shotgun and Digi-structed it into her hands.

She hefted it in Barry's direction. He managed to catch it, but it weighed so much he toppled over anyway.

"There. Just point in any direction that I'm not, and pull the trigger... Oh, and remember to brace yourself, my dudes got a bit of a kick."

Barry pulled himself back to his feet, cradling the shotgun to his chest like it was a small child.

"Are... are you sure about this? I don't want to slow you down," Barry asked.

Lup held her arms out and gestured to her slight frame. Barry followed along, his gaze lingering for maybe a second too long on her bare tummy and skin-tight crop top.

"Do I look like a tank to you? If I go out there alone, I'll be swarmed."

Lup placed her hands on Barry's shoulders.

"Just, trust me. This is what sirens are made for. Watch my back, and I'll keep you alive."

To illustrate her point, Lup summoned up some of her innate power. Her tattoos pulsed, and translucent wings fluttered. Barry felt a sudden rush of energy flood his body.

The bruised hip he's suffered when the pirate ship collided with theirs suddenly stopped aching. Barry had read about the healing powers of sirens, but feeling his body mend itself in a split-second was something else.

Barry nodded and turned the shotgun around in his hands, so he was holding it with the barrel facing away from his body. He still wasn't sure if he was doing it right, but this seemed the best place to start.

Lup took her hands back and pulled another weapon out of her inventory, a Maliwan SMG with incendiary attachments.

From his time working in the weapons labs, Barry could tell that this model was one of their better and rarer ones. In the hands of a normal person, that gun would be as good at dishing out fiery death as the average flamethrower, but in the hands of an elementally-tuned siren, it would make hell look frozen over by comparison.

Lup stalked over to the door of the mess hall, taking up point beside the closed doorway.

She gestured to the other side, and Barry fell in beside her, using the doorway for cover.

"I'm going to override the lockdown on the count of three. Ready?"

Barry nodded. He absolutely was not ready, but if Lup needed him, he was damn well going to try his best to be.

Lup pulled up her ECHO and started to input the codes.

"One, two, three!"

The doors opened, and a volley of gunfire shot through the open door, decimating one of the dining chairs.

Lup leaned part of her body and the barrel of her gun around the edge and let loose a wave of flaming projectiles. A flash of bright light and screams of pain followed.

Lup stepped out into the doorway and shouted to Barry, "Time to go, blue!"

Without hesitation, he followed her.

* * *

 

Together they fought their way to the cargo bay. Barry pointed the shotgun in the direction of things he wanted to go away, and after he'd pulled the trigger and braced for the kickback, they were usually gone.

Lup moved like liquid fire, letting Barry draw the attention away from her while she picked off pirates one by one. Setting them alight and leaving them to finish dying.

They were a rather disorganised mob, which meant they weren't being attacked directly by of any of the rival PMCs.

As a rule, the corporations liked to at least pretend they weren't locked in a blood-soaked war with one another. That's why Maliwan charted the Starblaster and her mercenary crew to steal their prize from Dahl's underground bunker on Iris, and why these lovely chaps had been hired to steal it back again.

They didn't encounter all that much resistance on their way to the cargo bay. Which unfortunately meant most of the pirates were already there.

They reached the twisted husk of metal that used to be the cargo bay doors. Lup held up a hand, indicating Barry should stop. He did so, using the short break to get a better grip on his gun. His hands were sweating, and it was making the metal rather slippery.

Lup stuck her head in, then pulled back a half second later. Her blue eyes wide as dinner plates.

With a flick of her fingers, Lup's gun dissolved and returned to being nothing but a complex snippet of computer code.

"Hey, Barry?"

Barry had never herd Lup use his real name before, so it took him a second to respond.

"...Yes?"

"I need you to keep them off my back until I make it over to Taako, okay?"

Barry swallowed and looked down at his gun. So far, he was only hitting what he aimed at about half the time, and that was at close range.

But lack of skill or not, he refused to let Lup down.

"Okay."

With that reassurance, the pair of them charged into the cargo bay and the chaos.

All the other members of the Starblaster crew were locked in combat, with endless waves of attackers coming from all sides. Magnus was in close combat with a few Buzzsaw-wielding bandits, splitting heads with his own, much larger, axe. Merle was duel wielding SMGs, which was almost doubly impressive for a man his age, and Lucretia's robot partner hovered around her shoulder, bisecting anyone she didn't take down with her pistol.

Taako was in the centre, having completely given up using conventional weaponry in favour of shooting lightning bolts from his fingers. His siren tattoos were glowing, his wings were out, and he was hovering a few feet off the ground.

Lup made a dash for him, keeping her head down. Barry sprinted after her, the adrenaline coursing through his veins somehow allowing him to run and shoot at the same time. He took out two pirates that made a lunge for Lup, only to be tackled to the floor by a third.

Barry thrashed against the masked bandit. His gun had been knocked flat against his chest, making it utterly useless and giving the bandit something to push against and pin him down.

Magnus waded in and kicked the bandit in the side hard enough to send him flying.

Barry breathed a, "thank you." and managed to get to his feet just in time to see the twin sirens meet.

Lup pressed her shoulders up against Taako's. They held their hands out together, channelling energy from their shared connection to the endless multitude of parallel dimensions.

White light exploded outward, and the floor underneath the feet of each and every bandit opened up and disgorged a tongue of flame summoned from another reality.

All the members of the crew, even those who were standing close to enemies at the time, didn't suffer even a light sunburn. The heat and flame swerved around them with pinpoint precision.

The light faded and Taako and Lup collapsed together onto the hard metal floor.

Barry dropped his gun and rushed over to them, along with the rest of the crew.

* * *

 

The rest of the trip thankfully passed without incident. Word had probably gotten around about the small Starblaster crew taking out a whole destroyer's worth of pirates, and the local mercenaries were thinking twice about picking on the supposedly easy prey.

They docked at Maliwan HQ, and the cargo was unloaded. A single pressure-sealed tube with Dahl's logo etched on the side.

Barry had to see it settled in the labs personally, but he'd left the manager of the cargo bay with strict instructions to notify him before the Starblaster crew finished refuelling and receiving their payment. They would probably stay a few days for shore leave, but Barry didn't want to risk them departing before he got a chance to say his peace.

* * *

 

Later that night, Barry was roused from his work by tapping on the glass window that looked out into the hallway.

He looked up, barely managing to stifle a yawn. Barry got to his feet and opened the door, allowing Lup into the laboratory.

"Sup?" She asked tilting her head back in his direction in a kind of reverse nod.

"Uh... just making sure the artefact is stable," Barry replied. "We need to be cautious, a lot of the relics left by the Eridians eventually turn out to be weapons of some kind."

Lup drifted over to the large glass tube in the centre of the room and the incandescent light housed within.

"Wait, That's it? All that was just for a glowing ball?"

Barry shrugged. "We call it 'The Light of Creation.' The energy readings we've been able to get are off the charts, so there must be something to it."

He came over to stand beside Lup, leaning against the railing that encircled the holding chamber.

"Besides, even if it was just a glowing ball, Maliwan gets what it wants. The CEO's will be damned if they get scooped like they did when Hyperion secured the monopoly on eridium production."

Lup nodded. Her eyes still fixed on the glowing orb. Bathed in its light, she almost looked like she had back in the heat of battle.

 "Hey, Lup. I couldn't help but notice that you have quite the mix of people in your crew... people with different talents and specialities?"

Lup turned to him, waiting to see where he was going with this.

"Yeah, Sure do."

"But, uh, so far you don't seem to have anyone from a scientific background... Maybe with experience in weapon manufacturing?"

A wide grin spread across Lup's face.

"I'd have to ask Davenport, but that does sound like someone who'd be useful," she agreed. She glanced around the lab, at the polished metal tables and countless rows of expensive custom glassware. "You sure you'd really want to leave all this behind? Mercenary work doesn't have a retirement plan or health benefits...or working showers, sometimes.."

Barry bit down on his bottom lip, then eventually said, "But it has you..."

Lup let out a bark of laughter, her smile getting even wider.

"That's some powerful flirting for such a tiny nerd."

Barry decided not to point out that, calculating for volume, he was probably twice Lup's size.

"Alright, tell you what, blue. Since you kinda saved my ass back there, I'll make your case to captin'port and the others. Can't promise anything, but I am pretty persuasive when I feel like it."

 

 

 


End file.
